young students above cited, some one among you may exclaim, "Who will inform me who can be the author of this ridiculous superstition?" I wish I could tell you; I am sorry I can not, but I should not wonder if he lived before the days of Moses, the first "dowser" on record. When oil was discovered in this country many of us believed that there was at last "something new under the sun.' We have only to turn to the Scriptures to learn that Job was in the oil and dairy business a few thousand years before Oil City sprung up under our wondering eyes. Job has always been supposed to refer to some great miracle when he says, in the 29th chapter of his book, "I washed my steps with butter and the rock poured me out rivers of oil; the young men saw me and hid themselves." Also, in Deuteronomy, we read, chapter 32, verse 13, "And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." Now, we have these marvels repeating themselves daily; and I think it no very far-fetched idea to assume that the "divining rod" was used in the discovery of these precious deposits. I am myself acquainted with a gentleman who has lately successfully located two oil wells by this magic (so-called) process.

In fact, who knows but that the first knowledge of the "divining rod" was a revelation, and that Moses not only understood the art, but taught it to the Children of Israel, from whence the supposed superstition has spread.

When Moses found the water at Meribeh-Rephidim and Meribeh-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, he had received the Almighty's command: "Go before the people and take with thee the elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river; take it in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and then shall come water out of it, that the people may drink; and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel."

In the 20th chapter of Numbers we read of a similar miracle occurring three years afterward—"And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him, and said, Hear, now, ye rebels, must we fetch water out of this rock. And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also."

Now in the 21st chapter of Numbers we find these verses: "And from thence they went to Beer, that is, the well whereof the Lord spake unto Moses. Gather the people together and I will give them water. Then sang Israel this song—Spring up, O, well! sing ye unto it. The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with their staves." This shows that the lawgiver pointed out the places for them to dig, and the people made the wells.

There is nothing like faithful searching if you wish to find; so I advise you to look back also as far as Confucius, and then come down to the old monk, Roger Bacon, and it would not surprise me if you should ascertain that those old wise-heads had gone even farther than your humble servant into the mysteries of the divining rod.

But I will not quote from these ancients; I will only look back a short hundred years. In Sir David Brewster's Philosophy you will find that he says that there is no doubt that the presence of water can be detected by the divining rod, although it can not be demonstrated by any known science. It was this last paragraph which I stumbled upon many years ago, that first brought me to a practical knowledge of this phenomenon. I read it, and being on a visit in Raymond, Miss., I went to Judge ——, of that place, a scholar and a man of good sense, whom I took for granted had not failed to gather in, among his great stores of learning, something about the topic which had struck me so forcibly. I was not mistaken; the old gentleman told me that he had not only heard a good deal about this matter, but possessed, himself, the power of finding water, offering to show me how he proceeded. Soon after we went, accompanied by my brother, Dr. L., to a spot where there was a well known under-ground stream. The Judge cut three forked branches from a peach tree, each took one and we marched over the spot indicated, holding our rods according to the approved style of the "dowser" proper. At a certain point the switches in the hands of the Judge and myself went down simultaneously; the effect was very apparent; but my brother, in whose hands there was no movement, mercilessly ridiculed the whole proceeding; neither the Judge nor I being at all disconcerted by his skeptical derision of our scientific research. I could not be shaken from faith in my actual, absolute experience, and was fully convinced that there was a mysterious power, beyond my ken, that turned the switch. I pondered over the matter, and resolved that at some future day I would examine more closely into it.

This, to me, decisive epoch finally came after a great number of trials, always with satisfactory results as to the bare fact that water could be traced or discovered. That the switch did turn in my hand readily was undoubtedly true—the agency which moved it was the mystery.

I knew that electricity had broad shoulders, and had always carried the weight of every unexplained phenomenon. I said this switch turns by electric force. Having evolved my theory, I set out to sustain it, by experiment. Upon inquiry, I found that not only could water be discovered, but it was asserted that minerals as readily answered to the call of the magic rod; and, indeed, that even their depth beneath the earth's surface might be computed.

Granting this to be true, I concluded that I had not only a philosophical but a mathematical problem to solve. I, however, never met any one having any information on this latter point, nor in my readings did I find any allusion to the possibility of ascertaining the depth below the surface of any concealed stream or mineral. On the contrary, I found the general impression to be that the whole thing was a superstition of ignorant minds. The doubters frequently met me, and with some show of reason, with this personal argument: "I cannot believe this thing, because the switch does not turn in my hand." It is quite true that every hand does not have the power of giving the motion to the switch; but this does not disprove the fact of its turning. I have heard that the evidence of one man who heard a bell is worth that of a dozen who did not hear it. The testimony is, therefore, to my mind, clearly in favor of the "dowsers." All men are not the same conductors of electricity. I have known persons who could light the gas by running across the floor, rubbing their feet upon the carpet, and pointing a finger at the jet. I never saw this done, but I have no doubt that there are many who can do it, and also many who cannot.

Now, although the switch may not turn in the hands of all, this is no proof that the current producing the movement does not pass through the persons just the same—the effect is only less perceptible in some, than in others.

I had made a very large number of experiments, from time to time, before I had an opportunity to make one which satisfied me that I was on the right track. I had in these experiments exploded the superstition of the "witch-hazel," and learned that peach, apple, willow, dog-wood, beech, maple, iron, steel, copper—in fact, that even an old barrel hoop possessed all of its virtues, and so concluded that after all this relic of the necromancer's art of former days was a very simple matter, if we could but find the clue to it. A few years ago it happened that I wanted to get water at a place called Coloma, upon the Chicago, Michigan & Lake Shore Railroad, of which I was then chief engineer. I concluded to test my electric theory here. I found that it was necessary to dig a well upon the depot grounds—the point was to see if I could find water where I needed a tank. I took a switch and found water near the desired spot; then, with my theory in view, I made a second experiment. I bought four ink